News:
  • A History of Asian Americans
  • I Am Not A Virus
  • The Third Line
  • LIFE AFTER MILKBONE
  • eating the gods
  • Kaduna
  • Contact us
  • About
    • What is Cultural Weekly?
    • Advertise
    • Contributors
    • Masthead
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions: Write for us
    • Cultural Weekly Style & Formatting Guide
  • Contact us
  • About
    • What is Cultural Weekly?
    • Advertise
    • Contributors
    • Masthead
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions: Write for us
    • Cultural Weekly Style & Formatting Guide
Cultural Weekly logo
  • Film
  • TV + Web
  • Poetry
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Literature
  • Theatre
  • Music
  • Dance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Film
  • TV + Web
  • Poetry
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Literature
  • Theatre
  • Music
  • Dance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • Food

The Witkin Brothers
Human and Grotesque

By Peter Frank on June 4, 2014 in Art

2

Click Here To View Comments

Those of us who have followed the oeuvres of Joel-Peter and Jerome Witkin for the last well-nigh-unto-forty years have been waiting almost from the start for the siblings’ parallel careers to converge.

It has long been apparent that, despite their disparate media and imagery, they were indeed brothers under as well as over the skin. They both display a superficial taste for grotesquerie which turns out not to mask but to bespeak the intense humanity driving their respective visions.  And substantiating this propensity for hallucination in turn is their deep devotion to and knowledge of the technique and history of their crafts. Beyond their focus on the human figure (more or less), the Witkin brothers – all but estranged for their entire professional lives – propose vastly different worlds and focus on these worlds in vastly different ways.

Jerome, the painter based in upstate New York, concerns himself with the private and public histories of human cruelty and redemption. He starts with the mundane realities of small-city streets and weathered interiors and inhabits these sad, quotidian spaces with noble and desperate people, many of them haunted by real and imagined demons.

Photographer Joel-Peter, working in New Mexico, proposes environments that are at once more brightly lit and more sepulchral, using these as stages for hybrid, even mutant figures that could be the demons spooking his brother’s subjects. But, as their mythological and religious attributes come forward to dispel their initial perverseness, these humanoids close the distance between us, displaying a brooding dignity and provoking tender empathy.

They are as human and credible as are their painted cousins – and as are we.

JOEL-PETER WITKIN, LAS MENINAS, 1987, Gelatin Silver Print, 30 x 40 inches

JOEL-PETER WITKIN, LAS MENINAS, 1987, Gelatin Silver Print, 30 x 40 inches

JEROME WITKIN, A JEW IN A RUIN, 1990, Oil on Canvas, 71 x 88 inches

JEROME WITKIN, A JEW IN A RUIN, 1990, Oil on Canvas, 71 x 88 inches

 

JOEL-PETER WITKIN, FACE OF A WOMAN, 2004, Gelatin Silver Print, 26 3/4 x 36 3/4 inches

JOEL-PETER WITKIN, FACE OF A WOMAN, 2004, Gelatin Silver Print, 26 3/4 x 36 3/4 inches

TWIN VISIONS: Jerome Witkin & Joel-Peter Witkin, at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts through August 31, 2014. Information: http://www.jackrutbergfinearts.com/

Top image: JEROME WITKIN, VINCENT AND HIS DEMONS II, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 16 x 28 inches. All images are courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles.

Click Here To View Comments

Tagscollagefine artJack Rutberg Fine ArtsJerome WitkinJoel-Peter Witkinphotographyvisual art

Previous Story

Dance Momentum

Next Story

Andres Serrano: Faces of the Times

About the author

Peter Frank

Peter Frank

PETER FRANK is art critic for the Huffington Post and Associate Editor for Fabrik magazine, and former critic for Angeleno magazine and the L. A. Weekly. He has served as editor for THEmagazine Los Angeles and Visions Art Quarterly, as well as Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum. Frank studied art history at Columbia University in his native New York, where he wrote for The Village Voice and the SoHo Weekly News. (Photo by Eric Minh Swenson)

Related Posts

  • Signs and the City

    By Maurice Amiel
    What do signs do in the city? Signs in...
  • The Cultural Impact of a Photo is Bigger Now, Thanks to Social Media

    By Our Friends
    Photography has been an important part of...
  • Photographing people in places

    By Maurice Amiel
    The feature image …  … taken by R....
  • Frida Kahlo: Portrait of the Artist as a Fashionista

    By Stephen West
    San Francisco museums are starting to reopen...

Support Our Friends

Follow Us

Join Our Mailing List

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @CulturalWeekly

Comments

  • Lisa Segal Lisa Segal
    Valentine’s Day Redux: a Second Chance at True Love
    Marvelous!!!!!!!
    2/14/2021
  • maurice amiel maurice amiel
    Shakespeare on Despots, Power, and Finally… Transition
    Timely and educational this post Your scholarship...
    1/31/2021
  • maurice amiel maurice amiel
    Abigail Wee: “Growing Home”
    A first place well deserved While the particular...
    1/24/2021

New

  • Is CBD Oil Safe for My Dog?
  • How to Add Texture to the Wall and the Wall Hangings for Decoration
  • A History of Asian Americans
  • I Am Not A Virus
  • The Third Line

Tags

art dance film Los Angeles music photography poem poems poetry tomorrow's voices today

Like us

Please Help

Donate

Who are we?

Cultural Weekly is a place to talk about our creative culture with passion, perspective and analysis – and more words than “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” Our mission is to draw attention to our cultural environment, illuminate it, and make it ... read more

Site map

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
  • Contributors
  • Cultural Weekly Style & Formatting Guide
  • Food
  • Home
  • Masthead
  • Privacy Policy/Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Submission Form
  • Submissions: Write for us
  • Subscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Thank You

Links

Adam Leipzig
Entertainment Media Partners
This Is Crowd
CreativeFuture
Plastic Oceans Foundation
Arts & Letters Daily
Alltop
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Jack Grapes
Ethan Bearman
Writ Large Press

Mailing List

* indicates required


  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy/Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Contact us
Cultural Weekly is the digital magazine and public platform of Next Echo Foundation. DONATE HERE.
Copyright © 2010-2020 by Adam Leipzig. All Rights Reserved.